Sake Dabasso Halake stands proudly in front of Equity Bank’s Marsabit branch. She smiles, clutching an envelope filled with 16,000 Kenyan shillings that she just received. It was her insurance payout for the 10 cows she lost during the drought. Photo on Flickr by Jeff Haskins. Jeff Haskins, director of the Nairobi office of Burness … Continue reading
Sake Dabasso Halake stands proudly in front of Equity Bank‘s Marsabit branch, clutching an envelope of 16,000 Kenya shillings (USD165) that she received as a payout on an insurance policy she earlier took out for her cows; she lost ten cows in a drought just ending that has hurt the livelihoods of thousands of livestock herders … Continue reading
Children in Kenya’s Marsabit District pass one of thousands of carcasses of livestock that died in the drought in the Horn of Africa (photo on Flickr by Neil Palmer/CIAT). Voice of America reports today on ‘A new insurance program for poor livestock farmers in northern Kenya has made its first pay out to some 650 herders … Continue reading
Andrew Mude (right), a scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in Nairobi, Kenya, explains the livestock insurance payouts made last week to resource-poor livestock herders in Kenya’s Marsabit District in the wake of a great drought in the Horn of Africa that dried up the available forage on Marsabit’s rangelands and caused the … Continue reading
Some people in Kenya’s Marsabit District who in recent months lost up to a third of their cattle and other livestock to a great drought in the Horn of Africa received insurance payments last week; this man awaits his payout following a village meeting in Dirib Gombo, where it began to rain just two weeks … Continue reading
A herd of livestock near Marsabit town, in Kenya’s remote northern pastoral drylands (image on Flickr by Neil Palmer/CIAT). It’s time to unlock the potential of the world’s drylands, which cover more than one-third of the earth and are home to a third of humanity, half of whom—one billion—live in poverty and hunger. The current famine … Continue reading
At a village meeting last Friday in Dirib Gombo, in Kenya’s northern Marsabit District, farmers who took out livestock insurance receive their first payout after a prolonged drought here and elsewhere in the Horn of Africa (photo credit: Neil Palmer/CIAT). ‘An innovative insurance scheme to help East African farmers recover from the devastating drought is … Continue reading
ILRI staff help local livestock herders in Kenya’s Marsabit District understand how they might benefit from a new ‘index-based’ livestock insurance policy scheme, which is providing 650 herders who paid for this insurance with their first payout this month, following the loss of forage due to a drought that hit Marsabit as well as much … Continue reading
The development of the financial services sector is emerging as potential boon to agriculture in East Africa, with up to 40,000 farmers in Kenya and Rwanda set to gain from a new insurance scheme targeting losses to bad weather. The scheme comes at a time when Kenya is recovering from a prolonged drought in 2009 … Continue reading
Satellites measuring the greenness of Kenya from space are set to help insure livestock herders against droughts and mitigate the effects of climate change, experts said Friday. “This is a new approach to tackle an old problem,” Carlos Seré, director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), said of the satellite-based insurance for cattle, … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 